America
by Walt Whitman
For most of the country, it already is 4th of July and America is already celebrating it’s 250th birthday. However, on the West Coat, there’s still another hour to go.
In order to welcome the Pacific Time Zone to Independence Day, here’s David Hasselhoff!
Tear down that wall!
In 2025’s Stand Your Ground, Eric Roberts plays the role of Earl.
When we first meet Earl, he’s an alcoholic who lives in an RV that is parked near the childhood home of former Special Forces operative Jack Johnson (Daniel Stisen). Jack was born in Norway but grew up in the United States. That’s enough to make him and his pregnant wife the target of the local xenophobe, Bastion (Peter Stormare). When Bastion’s sons attack Jack’s house, they kill his wife. Jack kills one of the sons but, because the killing occurred outside of the house, the state’s stand your ground law does not apply to Jack and Jack is sent to prison for six years.
When Jack gets out of prison, he wants revenge. But first, he gets caught up with Earl. Earl, who tried to warn Jack on the night of the attack, is still living in the RV but, otherwise, he’s turned his life around. He’s sober and he’s a member of law enforcement!
The film follows a familiar path. Jack goes out for revenge. There’s a lot of gun battles, one of which is impressively staged. For the most part, though, it’s pretty forgettable and, with a 100 minute run time, almost painfully slow. Daniel Stisen is a Norwegian bodybuilder who can’t act and Peter Stormare is a Swedish character actor who can act but who apparently didn’t feel like doing so for this movie. (Listen, I don’t blame him. He showed up and he lent his Fargo/Armageddon cred to the film. As far as I’m concerned, he earned that paycheck.) The whole movie is pretty dumb.
But, here’s the good thing! Eric Roberts actually gets to do stuff in this movie. He’s in multiple scenes. He talks to the other characters. He actually stands up a few times. (You can always tell when Roberts is actually invested in one of his cameos because he’ll stand up and deliver his lines instead of just sitting behind a desk.) Roberts doesn’t have a big role in this film but he still does a little bit more than usual.
Stand Your Ground may not be good but still …. all hail Earl! And all hail Eric Roberts for continuing to hold the record for the most screen credits for an American actor. 700 roles and counting!
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
Here, to remind you why we celebrate the birth of this country, is a selection of patriotic posters from World War I and World War II.
The Rat Pack by Phil Stern
We’re only a few hours away from America’s 250th birthday! And what would an American birthday party be without some American celebrities of the present and the past?
Joan Crawford by Ruth Harriet Louise
Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee by Leo Fuchs
Marlon Brando by Leo Fuchs
Mary Badham and Gregory Peck by Leo Fuchs
Natalie Wood by Alan Grant
Marilyn Monroe and Jack Benny by Phil Stern
James Dean by Phil Stern
John Wayne by Phil Stern
Bruce Conner, Toni Basil, and Teri Garr by Dennis Hopper
Paul Newman by Dennis Hopper
Tuesday Weld by Dennis Hopper
Robert Downey, Jr. by Mary Ellen Mark
Meryl Streep by Mary Ellen Mark
Johnny Depp by Mary Ellen Mark
On July 4th, 1983, New Yorkers witnessed what is often described as being the greatest firework shows in history. The Macy’s Fireworks Show had been an annual tradition since 1976 but 1983 was the first year that the fireworks were shot off from the East River. Along with commemorating the 4th of July, the massive display was meant to honor the 100th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The 1983 show was also memorable because it was the first large-scale fireworks show to ever be televised. In 1983, it was aired on local stations in New York and New Jersey. In 2000, NBC took over the rights and begin broadcasting the event nationally. Tomorrow, the 50th annual Macy’s Fireworks Show will be broadcast on NBC and it will be streaming on Peacock.
Previous Moments In Television History:
In 1989, the Red Skull offered Spider-Man a million dollars to sell out his country.
It happened in The Amazing Spider-Man #325. The Red Skull was trying to engineer a war between America and the (fictional) country of Symaria by framing each country for murdering the other’s ambassador. The Red Skull felt the war would leave America weakened and distracted and therefore vulnerable to his attempts to conquer and destroy it. He offered Spider-Man a million dollars to turn traitor and help him.
Spider-Man had reason to be tempted. Unlike most of the Marvel heroes, Spider-Man was never rich. He was usually on the verge of getting kicked out of his home for not being able to pay the rent. J. Jonah Jameson didn’t pay a lot for his pictures. His marriage to Mary Jane was usually strained, due to his finances and also lazy writing on the part of Spider-Man’s creative team. As well, in this issue, the U.S. government refused to issue Spider-Man a security clearance because he wouldn’t reveal his secret identity. Realistically, most people would probably ask for a lot more than a million before risking execution as a traitor but, to comic book readers in 2000, a million still seemed like a big deal.
Did Spider-Man sell out his country?
What do you think?
The Amazing Spider-Man #325 is controversial because, amongst other things, it neve made sense that the Red Skull would think he could bribe Spider-Man in the first place. For today, though, the important thing is that Spider-Man, one of Marvel’s most easily disillusioned heroes, confirmed what we already suspected.
He’s a patriot.
Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:
While on a routine scouting patrol, Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) and Apollo (Richard Hatch) are captured, not by Cylons but instead by the crew of the Battlestar Pegasus. The Pegasus and its legendary commander, Cain (Lloyd Bridges), were assumed to have been lost during the Cylon sneak attack but instead, Cain survived and the Pegasus has been in deep space ever since, waging his own war against the Cylons. At first, both Cain and Adama (Lorne Greene) are both happy to discover that the other is still alive. But it turns out that Adama and Cain both have very different plans and visions for the future. Adama wants to steal fuel from a nearby Cylon base so that he and his fleet can continue their journey to Earth. Cain wants to launch a full-out attack on the Cylons and he expects the Galactica to help him. Though they both share the same enemy, the crews of the Galactica and Pegasus find themselves divided over which commander to follow. Is it better to go down fighting or to survive to find a new home?
Sold overseas as a sequel to the first Battlestar Galactica feature film (which itself was just an edited version of the show’s pilot), Mission Galactica was cobbled together from three episodes of the television series. Because the TV show was expensive to produce and not the ratings hit that NBC was expecting, the show’s producer, Glen Larson, was asked to edit several episodes together so that they could be released as movies in Europe and Asia. Larson took a two-part episode featuring Commander Cain and added some scenes from an unrelated episode that featured an injured Apollo undergoing surgery while a fire raged in the Galactica. All things considered, Larson did a good job of cleanly assembling the movie without making it too obvious that it was stitched together out of three episodes, though some of the best parts of Cain’s storyline did get left on the cutting room floor.
How does Mission Galactica work as a movie? Even though it opens with a voice-over narration explaining the Cylon attack and the Galactica’s mission to find Earth, I imagine that someone watching this with no previous knowledge of the show would be lost. As well, it’s obvious that the special effects were designed with the small screen of television in mind. However, Lloyd Bridges transcends the script’s limitations as the charismatic but obsessive Command Cain. This is actually one of Bridges’s best performances and his scenes with Lorne Greene work surprisingly well. They’re both believable as two proud commanders who are both convinced that they’re doing the right thing. The rest of the cast is adequate. I’ve always liked Dirk Benedict’s performance as Starbuck, even if he was essentially just playing a variation on Han Solo. For all of its flaws as a series, Battlestar Galactica usually did a good job of capturing the vastness of space and the epic scope of Galactica’s journey and that’s the case here. Mission Galactica doesn’t escape its television origins but, for fans of the series, it’s an enjoyable space opera.
In the end, I recommend watching the original episodes that were used for this movie — Parts One and Two of The Living Legend and Fire In Space. The Living Legend was the original Battlestar Galactica at its best.
In a distant galaxy, the humans and the robotic Cylons have been at war for a thousand years. Due to the diplomacy of Count Baltar (John Colicos), it appears that a peace agreement has finally been reached. On their homeworld, President Adar (Lew Ayres) and the leaders of humanity prepare to welcome to the Cylons to a signing ceremony. Amongst the commanders of the fleet of ships that orbit and defend the homeworld, only Commander Adama (Lorne Greene) fears that the Cylons may be plotting a sneak attack.
Adama turns out to be correct. Baldar betrays humanity and the Cylons launch a sudden attack, wiping out the human leadership and almost the entire fleet of Battlestars. Only Adama’s Galactica survives. After picking up the refugees who survived the attack, the Galactica sets out to find a legendary planet that might be home to more humans. With the Cylons pursuing and brave men like Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) and Adama’s son, Apollo (Richard Hatch), fighting to protect the last of the human refugees, the Galactica searches for Earth.
With Star Wars still a cultural phenomenon in 1978, it made sense that a television network like ABC would greenlight a science fiction series. When producer Glen A. Larson pitched the idea for Battlestar Galactica, ABC was eager to move forward with it. However, when the pilot cost $8,000,000 to produce (which was then a record-setting amount for a television show), ABC decided to recoup their costs by releasing an edited version of the pilot in theaters. In Canada and the United States, the “film” hit theaters before it was subsequently aired on television. The film was then later released in Europe, where it was a huge hit.
In fact, it was such a hit that 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios, claiming that Battlestar Galactica stole the majority of its ideas from Star Wars. Universal responded by filing a countersuit, claiming that Star Wars stole the majority of its ideas from Flash Gordon. The case was eventually settled in 1983, long after the original Battlestar Galactica television series had been canceled.
And while that is all very interesting, it doesn’t answer the question that is probably on your mind right now. Is the edited theatrical release of the Battlestar Galactica pilot any good?
Yes and no. The first part of the movie, which deals with the Cylon sneak attack and Starbuck and Apollo rescuing the human refugees is an excellent work of science fiction, a space opera that can stand up with the best of them. Even after all this time, the special effects are still effective as is Lorne Greene’s authoritative performance as Adama. Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict are also strong as the two main fighter pilots, even if both of them are obviously meant to be television versions of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. (Benedict’s Starbuck was the coolest character on Battlestar Galactica. He was the best pilot, he was the best poker player, and he even smoked a cigar.) The Cylons are chilling victims and the pilot even features some effective human drama along with all of the space battles. After the Cylon attack, the story follows the Galactica as it makes a stop on a planet that’s also a casino that’s being run by untrustworthy space insects. That part betrays the film’s television origins and feels like one of those episodes of Dr. Who that people try to forget. The pilot features everything that made Battlestar Galactica work but, unfortunately, it also features everything that didn’t work.
Watching it today, though, it’s impossible not to feel the welcome pull of nostalgia. In a time of cynicism, the pure idealism of Battlestar Galactica and its quest for Earth provides a nice and needed relief. To quote Commander Adama:
“Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a ragtag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest… a shining planet known as Earth.”
by Hubert Rogers
With the 4th of July approaching, let’s celebrate the American city with the pulps! Ever since the early days of the pulp industry, writers and artists have excited readers with stories about the lives of those living in America’s cities. Here, curtsey of some of the best artists to have worked in the industry, is a pulp-guided tour of those cities!
by Rudy Nappi
by Robert Stanley
by Rafael DeSoto
by Robert Stanley
by Victor Olson
by Mike Ludlow
by Lou Marchetti
by Raymond Pease
by Walter Popp
by Robert Bonfils
Through the Shattered Lens 